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Abstract:

Many of the attempts to classify nursing phenomena (or diagnoses) have been developed
within the context of acute/chronic general nursing, and may
, as such, be seen to represent
only a subsection of the profession as a whole, for scant consideration has been made of
the phenomena of interest to intellectual disability nurses.
This may be because such
nurses have traditionally been located in only a handful o
f countries, and have not been
motivated to examine this area themselves.
Considering that intellectual disability nursing in Ireland
, is at a crucial juncture, with
various forces, within and outside of nursing seeking to relegate it to a post-graduate,
specialist level, there is a risk that the specific input
of this nursing will be lost, and will be
subsumed within an illness/problem-oriented approach, that
is not representative of the
reality of care in this field.
The purpose of this study was to identify the foci of interest that are specific to nursing
intervention within residential, intellectual disability nursing. This was achieved through
the use of a Delphi study which was followed up by three focus groups held among Irish
intellectual disability nurses working in three service settings, and personal interviews with
residential service/nurse managers.